Chapter 14. Human Limits
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"What do you think about an OP in a manga style?"
"Sounds pretty good!"
"Right! You know, when I was a kid, I loved reading Weekly Shonen JUMP. I believe I wasn't the only one attracted to it back then! So, I thought, if we could create a picture with the density similar to a Weekly Shonen JUMP cover..."
"Then every viewer who sees our OP would be reminded of the excitement they felt when they first opened Weekly Shonen JUMP! It not only highlights the hot-blooded theme of our work but also awakens precious childhood memories in the audience. It's a win-win!"
"As expected of you, Pucci! You instantly understood what I meant!"
"It's all thanks to your inspiration, Mizusaki!"
"Pucci!"
"Mizusaki!"
"Soulmates!!"
"..."
This was the conversation Jolyne Cujoh heard when she arrived at the Phantom Blood set after learning that people from Kamikaze Studio had arrived.
No, she hadn't even opened the door yet. Standing by the door, she heard Pucci and Junpei Mizusaki chatting so enthusiastically.
Hmm, time to leave. Jolyne stopped her hand, which was about to open the door, and decided not to go in. She thought to herself that Kamikaze Studio's production level was something she had personally verified.
As for the Phantom Blood script, it went without saying. If there was no issue with Phantom Blood, how could she have recruited someone like Pucci, who was a genius in his field?
Just think of Pop Team Epic, which seemed like a work needing psychiatric evaluation for its creators, and Phantom Blood, which lacked any sense of hot-blooded passion and even broke the ultimate taboo by killing off the main character.
And now they were talking about using a manga style for the OP? Are they the same thing? Or even the same genre?!
Combining all these elements, it would be a miracle if Phantom Blood didn't end up a complete failure!
Thinking this, Jolyne, who originally wanted to see how the production of Phantom Blood was going, secretly left with a smile.
No, it wasn't because putting Pucci and Mizusaki together felt like watching a psychiatric patient's social session, making her feel inexplicably scared.
To avoid being infected by this "madness," she hurriedly left. Yes, definitely not because of that...
...
Thus, in a corner unnoticed by Jolyne, the production of Phantom Blood quietly underwent changes.
This was not only due to Kamikaze Studio's technical assistance easing Pucci's team's shortcomings in fully immersive technology.
More importantly, today, the storyline of Phantom Blood finally entered the second phase of filming!
"The day has finally come?" Akiyuki Shinbo sighed. "I thought it would take a bit longer."
"Yeah, I didn't expect it to be this soon," Shuhei Morita echoed. "Even though the vampire model template, after being tested by many popular works, has been proven to be the most suitable non-human model for fully immersive filming."
"Not only do they have almost the same appearance as humans, but their habits, aside from needing to drink blood and fearing sunlight and silver weapons, are almost identical to normal humans."
"The best part is that even if actors subconsciously feel something is wrong, these minor inconsistencies add to the bloodthirsty monster vibe of the vampires, rather than derailing the plot!"
That's why, even in most cases where non-human monster roles were unfriendly to non-human characters and controlled by AI or manually operated by off-site staff, vampire-themed productions remained popular.
Of course, this only applied to the modernized, aesthetically pleasing vampire gentlemen, not the early zombie-like vampire monsters.
But in Phantom Blood, the vampires were reverting to a more classic, slightly retro style. They would load this time-tested vampire model into the Phantom Blood production set?!
Even modernized vampire gentlemen could impact actors' subconscious minds. So, what kind of mental resilience would be required for this retro vampire model?
Honestly, even in Akiyuki Shinbo's experience, only a handful of people could handle such a role model.
As for Shuhei Morita, who personally modified the vampire model, he thought it might take years of specialized training before anyone could use this vampire model effectively.
Thus, when he created this vampire model, he secretly made several weaker versions, ready to swap them in for Pucci if needed.
But...
"Is that guy really human?"
Watching Dio enter the script world, even though the plot was still at the stage where Jonathan found evidence of Dio trying to poison George Joestar and was confronting Dio, the vampire storyline hadn't started filming yet.
From previous lessons, the fact that Dio could activate the fully immersive device and enter this script world was proof that he successfully handled the vampire model during the audition!
So, what kind of monster subconscious did Dio have to achieve this?!
Shuhei Morita couldn't even imagine.
"Human?"
"How could Dio be human?" Pucci, keeping a close eye on the filming changes through the equipment, laughed and said, "After all, human abilities are..."
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"JOJO, human abilities indeed have limits..."
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